


Nipping Air

by billspilledquill



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Microfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: “I knew your father, my lord,” he said, “these hands are not more like.”





	Nipping Air

 

“I knew your father, my lord,” he said, “these hands are not more like.”

Hamlet instead looked at his own hands, and the pale complexion of it. How the skin had sticked to the bones. Horatio tried to picture them handling a spear.

“Tis very strange,” Hamlet replied, almost a whisper. He quietly reached out, palms facing Horatio’s, “there were rumors about how much we were alike.”

“Ay,” he acquiesced as he was supposed to. He took Hamlet’s hands, almost feared that it would break. _The King had a strong hand, my lord._

Hamlet’s eyes were fixed on their linked hands, as if he was trying to make sense of it. He sighed softly, his fingers trembling against Horatio’s.

“This troubles me.” He said with a distant voice, “Hold you the watch to-night?”

Before Horatio had time to speak, Marcellus was eager to enter.

“We do, my lord.”

Hamlet jumped. He said he would go forth to the watch tonight. Horatio looked at his friend, his slight stature and his narrowed shoulders, and somehow understood why his hands felt cold after Hamlet had taken his back.

 

* * *

 

Their way to the platform was an odd one.

It started out when Marcellus took the head, to protect the prince and when Horatio stayed at that prince’s side, when the night had fallen and everything was a blur of moonlight. It began with Hamlet’s hands on his shoulders.

It was a tentative touch, but Horatio made no signs to move. So the hands rested there, making Horatio needing his on Hamlet’s waist. Marcellus was ahead, the bushes hiding his figure.

Hamlet lifted his head, then on Horatio’s shoulder.

“The air bites shrewdly,” he said, making a case of why he was literally draped on Horatio. The rest of the sentence was almost delivered in a pout. “It is very cold.”

Hamlet traveled his lips to Horatio’s neck, stayed there for a while, doing what tongue can. His hands tangling in his curls, tugging softly. He can feel Hamlet’s tremor beside him. There were words there, where words cannot be uttered. He tilted his head, kissing Hamlet on the cheek.

“It is a nipping and an eager air,” he said. Something can be made too much of this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you have to make an air/heir pun.


End file.
